Seth was pale and trembling: he felt there was some terrible secret under all this. “Brother,” he said, faintly—he never called Adam “Brother” except in solemn moments—”I don’t believe you’ll do anything as you can’t ask God’s blessing on.”
“Nay, lad,” said Adam, “don’t be afraid. I’m for doing nought but what’s a man’s duty.”
The thought that if he betrayed his trouble to his mother, she would only distress him by words, half of blundering affection, half of irrepressible triumph that Hetty proved as unfit to be his wife as she had always foreseen, brought back some of his habitual firmness and self-command. He had felt ill on his journey home—he told her when she came down—had stayed all night at Tredddleston for that reason; and a bad headache, that still hung about him this morning,
